Let me add further emphasis to that...

It's still QUITE a bit better than being ruled by a single autocratic dictator-for-life such as Mr Gadhaffi.

However, I think what really has secured our civil rights and our generally peaceable societies in the English-speaking world is simply the long established social traditions those societies have been built upon, and which we are all accustomed to. We grow up with those traditions which include such rights as free speech, freedom of assembly, due process of law, and so on. That bulwark of tradition tends to maintain itself, and that is mainly what has protected us against the establishment of a violent dictatorship.

I don't think our fractious and divisive political parties have been of much assistance in maintaining our freedoms...although there is one good thing about them: they each serve as a watchdog on what the other is doing, and that's not the case in a single party state.